Triple Nine Date
by One percent
Summary: Meryl loved her job and excelled at it, but that didn't seem to be enough for her boss. "If someone is so busy that they can't even manage to have a personal life, then they are unfit for the additional burdens that come with a promotion." How hard could it be to squeeze a guy into her schedule, really? AU
1. Chapter 1

**Triple Nine Date**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: The number One**

* * *

"Triple Nine Society?" Meryl repeated with a bit of skepticism in her voice while looking at the austere website on the screen. She had never been on a dating site before, but she imagined it to be ... well, more colorful and superficial. Instead of the smiling faces of supposedly single males and females, there was just a boring logo, a lecture about six sigma and a catchphrase saying: _"Our select society is committed to friendship, communication, the adventure of intellectual exploration, and a greater realization of individual potentials. You will definitely find your match here."_

"Friendship, huh? Milly, are you sure this is even a dating site?" Meryl turned her head to her assistant who somehow convinced her that this was the shortest and most efficient way of finding a guy while still being a full time workaholic. Of course, she wouldn't have bothered had her boss not implied during the last meeting that he trusted better people who could manage both work and private life for promotions. She had no 'private life' yet.

"Of course I'm sure!" chirped Milly with her usual enthusiasm. "I was told they had very high standards. This is where my great great great cousin Miranda found her husband. And he's such a sweetheart!"

"Fine. How do I proceed?"

"You just need to register. It's pretty simple."

Meryl clicked on the joining link and was met with a long list of questions along with a 30 double dollars fee. She groaned. She filled the first fields asking for her name, age, profession, gender before stopping short on the next question.

"You have 12 sheep," her eyebrows rose, "among which one different animal is hidden. All the sheep weight the same, but the other animal is either lighter or heavier. You have a big balance. How do you figure out which one is the fake sheep in only 3 tries?... You must be kidding me."

Milly leaned closer and frowned. "Hmm, Miranda didn't tell me about this."

After four hours of annoying questions, and the use of multiple sheets of paper, cheats, internet search and useless calls to friends, they finally managed to reach the end of the first section, scoring 1 out of 5.

"This is impossible."

The hardest riddle for Milly this evening was why Meryl didn't give up sooner. Meryl's head was steaming. Her expression angry. Her pen broken. Her paper recycling bin filled with failed attempts.

"Are you sure Miranda wasn't trolling you?" was her only question before, in a state somewhere between frustration, sleep and hypnosis, she grabbed her jacket and went out of the door, mumbling something about a completely wasted afternoon. On the way out, she ran into Vash, the morally challenged but otherwise very smart guy who was known for his selective intelligence.

"…."

Meryl couldn't. She was too frustrated. Tomorrow. She would ask him tomorrow. In trance, she drove home, switched on the tv, didn't get a single word of what was said in today's episode of "desperate insurance girls", her favorite series. The next thing she was aware of was her alarm clock, ringing.

Fresh and recharged with mental energy, she entered her office and switched on her computer. She would solve these damn riddles in a few minutes. How? She could just use brute force. At some point her answers must be correct, and she could reverse engineer everything from failed attempts. Easy.

But when she tried to continue her registration, a " **Welcome #1** " greeted her.

"Milly?"

"Yes?"

Milly and Meryl both bent their heads to be able to see each other.

"Why am I number one?"

"Oh, I told Vash how hard you tried, and he solved it all for you. Isn't that nice of him?"

"He got a full score in record time?"

The screen showed a low quality picture of a golden medal saying "Smartest Member". She felt very, very dumb. But, to her surprise, there were already more than a dozen messages in her inbox. She read them all.

"Seven people say I cheated. Four congratulate me. One is asking if I have time for a talk. Two say they did some research and think I am using a fake name."

Meryl had no idea what to do next. Answer? Reject them all? Only one seemed to behave approximately how she expected men to behave on a dating site. In the end, she decided to send a broadcasted message to all of them except the polite one: "No." – The polite one had to wait two more days.

Meryl had no idea how to behave, but she knew how she could make herself interesting.

"Sorry, I don't have time right now, too many intellectually challenging tasks. But we can chat in 2 days. I will have all my problems solved by then. Bye."

She didn't worry too much about how to formulate it. After all, she could have everyone, given her score, right? Every man on that site should be after her right now. And would they really find out she didn't answer the questions? In the real world, which kind of problem could she possibly encounter so that it would become obvious? Besides, she just needed…. What was it again? Ah right, a personal life. Nothing that would get too much in her working schedule. Just an independent guy who she would spend a bit of time with.


	2. Chapter 2

**Triple Nine Date**

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Let's Chat!**

* * *

The first thing Meryl did after coming home at 10 p.m. was to switch on her crappy old computer, log in, and send a message to 'Knives', which was obviously a nickname. Nobody had such a name.

What should she say? She said she would take 2 days, but that was before her patience ran out. How could she… ah of course! Divine intervention! Then it wasn't her fault.

"Dear Mr. Millions, due to a stroke of luck, my problems all solved themselves. If you like, we can…"

A message popped up, just below hers.

"Yes, let's dive into the maze of logic."

What the…? She didn't even send her message. Then she noticed that there was no "send" button. She could ask Knives, but then he would know she had no idea what just happened.

She assumed she had missed the latest development regarding how chats worked and just typed a new message into the white box that had appeared below Knives' message. She greeted him politely, and then saw how a sentence of him appeared bit by bit. _Ah, so that's how it works!_ Now she could act smart. No – she *was* smart. She figured it out! On her first try!

"Ok, so, what do you want to do?" appeared on her screen. That was almost too easy.

"I don't know, maybe watch a movie, go to a restaurant, maybe go into a zoo? But their prices are a rip off. $$10 per person. Come to think of it, it's too late for the movie. They stopped showing it last week. But the park! Yes! The old oak is very…."

She hesitated, but then thought that she didn't have anything to lose. There were hundreds of men waiting for her.

"Romantic."

Knives did not respond for an endless 10 seconds that felt like 20. Meryl was nervous like a little girl speaking in front of an audience for the first time.

"I understand. This will take a moment."

She stared at Knives' last message for 15 minutes, and it felt like one. Then he gave her the name of her home town. The name of the area she lived in, the cinema, the zoo, the park and the restaurant.

What should she do? How did he figure that out? Did he hack her computer?

"Too easy. Give me another one."

A-another what?

The cursor on the other side was blinking. Did it just challenge her? That little, blinking cursor? Was he playing a game? Was he a freak? Or just a nice guy, and this was a misunderstanding? Did Vash put in some info she wasn't aware of? That must be it. It was somewhere in her profile. He used her profile information.

"Ok, give me a minute."

What could she give him? What did he want, anyway? Was he some kind of detective? Ok then…

Meryl googled for the hardest riddles available on the desertnet. She picked the ones that were rated as the hardest, modified the problem without being aware of what she was doing and sent it to Knives.

He told her that this was unexpected and might take a while. 27 Minutes later, during which Meryl bit her nails off, he gave her an answer. She had no idea what he was talking about, but the choice of words indicated that Knives was sure about his answer. But maybe it was a trick. She just told him that she got tired and had to go to sleep, to which Knives responded:

"Wait a moment, please. Etiquette demands that you at least solve one riddle in return. Here is an easy one for you. Assume you can pose a binary question to an oracle. The oracle will either lie or tell the truth and will decide that for each question before you answer it. How can you force it to tell you always what you want to know?"

She had no idea. Instead, she felt the urge to cut the connection and pretend this conversation never happened.

"The neighbors' cat is stuck on the roof again, I have to help. Will answer tomorrow. Sorry."

And she logged out. Phew.

The next day, she was the first who appeared at work. Even before Vash, who usually arrived at 6 a.m. She needed him. She needed his brain. She would even pay him if necessary.


	3. Chapter 3

**Triple Nine Date**

* * *

 **Chapter 3: The Old Pervert**

* * *

06:05 a.m. She waited. Nothing.

She checked the calendar. No vacation entry.

She checked again. No holiday. Not Saturday, not Sunday.

She checked her mails. No notice from Vash.

6:30am. Still no sign of life.

At 7:15, the first sign of a coworker. The sound of keys opening a door. Footsteps. Was it Vash? She peeked over her computer screen. No, just the intern. He was surprised to see Meryl. She was disappointed. He noticed and his face showed confusion. _Great, Meryl. Great._

She couldn't focus. The paperwork on her desk grew by each minute, starting at 7:37am. A constant stream of requests reminded her of her job, but the constant stream of processing that usually kept the amount of piled up papers at a constant zero to five didn't show up today. By 9:15, she was already hopelessly behind. To impress her boss, she had offered to replace all people that were on vacation or sick, the boss was happy, and now it backfired.

Finally, at 10:45, way after he was supposed to be here, Vash showed up. Meryl instantly jumped at him, but she had to get into a queue. Two people got in front of her, pestering Vash with work related questions and favors they would like him to do.

She could not afford to leave the queue. 3 People were already behind her. Neither could she afford to stand here. She could see people adding papers to her pile on the desk. This was terrible. What would this company do without her? Go bankrupt instantly. If she asked for a day off, it would be a financial catastrophe. Ok, maybe Vash was also important. She never noticed.

Then, after endless hours of waiting, at 10:51, it was her turn.

"What do I need to ask the oracle?" she instantly half demanded, half pleaded.

Vash did not seem to get it.

"The oracle! Tell me! I don't have …." She realized after seeing his expression grow even more confused that she was skipping vital information. She took a big breath and tried again, blurting it all out in one go.

"So there is this oracle and it lies and I need to force it to tell the truth and I don't know how you have to help me please."

Vash looked at her, his mental wheels turning and turning.

"Ah, you are talking about that riddle?" he said, finally understanding. "You have to combine your question with an 'exclusive or' and ask if the oracle is planning to lie. This will always force it to give you the inverted answer to your question… let me write it down."

He grabbed a paper and quickly scribbled:

AT xor OT = no

AT xor OL = yes + invert = no

AF xor OT = yes

AF xor OL = no + invert = yes

Meryl had no idea what these symbols meant, but she took the paper in a hurry, went back to her desk and sent it anyway. She instantly got a confirmation that her answer was correct, as expected. Knives also told her that he would very much like to chat again tonight, but wouldn't be able to, so they had to shift it.

' _Thank God!'_ she thought.

To be polite, she answered:

"Oh, I was really hoping we could continue tonight, but ok, just message me again once you're free."

Meryl exhaled, and all the built up stress left her body. She was free. The paper pile seemed half as big now. She would have all day without worrying about the evening.

* * *

At noon, Milly asked Meryl if she wanted to join her for lunch. But after a quick look at her almost empty queue of cases to process, Meryl decided to skip it. It was against her nature to stop right before the end. Lunch had to wait. Too much talk. Not enough work.

"Can you do me a favor Milly?"

"Sure! Should I bring you the usual?"

"Yes, please. And… Donuts."

She could afford to eat some. Donuts had a lot of calories, but she needed something sweet today and they could be eaten quickly.

Milly smiled broadly. "Vash will appreciate it!"

Meryl was about to protest but reconsidered. _'I need to bribe him into silence,' she_ thought. _'It wouldn't be good for my reputation if people found out I am registered on a dating site… And that I couldn't manage to be accepted on my own.'_

Meryl resumed her work but couldn't help but check her triple nine inbox from time to time. There were two new messages. And they weren't from Knives. One was a rude "Are you really a woman? I can't believe it." that she promptly ignored, but the other was an invitation to chat.

It wouldn't be cheating if she talked with other guys, right? After all, she and Knives only shared a few messages, and it was only because he happened to be the first sane person who contacted her. It wasn't as if she was planning on two-timing or anything. And maybe there were other viable candidates. Yes, she shouldn't feel guilty. She was on a dating site and she was free to look around! That was probably what this 'Knives' was doing anyway.

Maybe that was why he wouldn't be talking with her tonight!

She opened her latest message and clicked on the profile of a certain William Conrad.

The picture showed an old, bald man who still looked well-kept for his age. Profession: Neuroscientist. Hobbies: Physics. Rank: #6. Age: 57. Status: Married.

Meryl's eyes went back to that last bit of information and read it again in disbelief. "Married?!"

 _Ah, he must have found his wife on the site?_

The rest of the presentation said: _"I love to explore the different beauties that our universe has to offer along with my son Anthony."_

What kind of site did she register at? No need to read the detailed description. She wanted to keep her sanity. Now, what might the Profile of Knives say?

She checked. It was empty. He was #2, which means she kicked him off his throne, but it revealed no other information.

* * *

The rest of the day was peaceful. Peaceful and successful. She managed to reduce her open task count to zero 5 minutes before she left, which gave her a chance to prepare for her next encounter with the mysterious Knives. She was planning to ask him about his experience with other members. He must have had some, and hopefully, it shocked him as much as it shocked her.

On her way to the exit, she remembered that she still didn't give the donuts to Vash. She had been too busy to do it earlier. After a bit of looking around, she found him bent over the computer of a colleague doing fixes and explaining them.

Meryl rolled her eyes. As expected he was helping. And she would bet the person wasn't listening to one word he said because they knew that should another problem arise, they could just go and annoy him again. The guy should learn to say no. Didn't he realize that everybody was just overusing his kindness?

He was soon done and she managed to catch him on his way to his office. "Vash, do you have a moment?"

"Hey, Meryl," He greeted her with his usual smile, "Got another riddle for me?"

"Not this time. I hope you won't tell my secret to anyone..."

"What secret?" he looked at her surprised. "Oh, you mean the site? Sure, no big deal." They both resumed walking. "But I have to admit, I'm surprised that you're interested in that kind of thing..."

She raised the hand that was holding the donuts box in his direction. "Can you help me some more?"

"Are these Donuts? For me? I'll help you anytime!"

The look of delight on his face amused her. He really loved the sweets, but how sad was it that so few thought of thanking him for his efforts? She should be more considerate.

A part of her started wondering why he assumed her being interested in dating was strange. Had she earned herself a label in the office? Or maybe he just found online dating questionable?

It didn't matter. For now, she needed his help.


End file.
